Senators float new surveillance bill

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy introduced the most sweeping bill yet dealing with the fallout over revelations of NSA surveillance of phone records and Internet usage.

The legislation is notable for its comprehensiveness and because of the author: Leahy is sure to give the measure some time in his committee room, be it for a hearing or a markup. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has said any legislation reacting to the National Security Agency programs must go through the regular committee process.

Text Size

-

+

reset

Obama breaks Snowden silence

The Vermont senator’s 72-page bill takes pieces of disparate proposals from other senators who have long sought to raise red flags over the breadth of government reach stemming from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and the Patriot Act, drawing cosponsorships from Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.) and Jon Tester (D-Mont.).

Lee said the bill “will narrow surveillance authorities where appropriate and help provide the necessary accountability to ensure that Americans’ constitutional rights are respected.”

The bill would cut short the FISA Amendments Act passed just last year that extended the ability of the government to collect records of phone and digital communications through December 2017. Leahy’s bill would change the sunset date to June 2015.

If the government wanted to sweep up communications records, the bill would require the feds to show the record search as relevant to an authorized investigation and also a link to a “foreign agent, power, or group.” It would also require more specificity for roving wiretap requests that can tap the lines of any telephone a targeted suspect uses.

The bill would also require a report be made public on government surveillance’s effect on Americans’ privacy and demand audits of the Patriot Act.

Leahy previously pushed many of the same proposals last year that ultimately the Senate rejected. But that was before The Guardian and the Washington Post published classified documents exposing the broad reach of the NSA’s intelligence-gathering.